


I could be (happy with you)

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Banter, F/F, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Pining, Snark, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-19 16:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: Leia glows with inner strength. She looks like a true Queen. She looks like a leader. Jyn thinks she’s never seen anything so beautiful.





	I could be (happy with you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [polkadot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/gifts).



They make it off Scarif thanks to Bodhi, who lost consciousness on the way back and still hasn’t woken up. Cassian is in full bacta immersion, as is Chirrut, and Baze and Jyn are confined to their beds. Jyn wonders, lying in her medbay bunk, if perhaps the Rebellion hadn’t preferred them not to survive. They are none of them the kind of morally pristine and righteous force for good that the Rebellion prides itself on being. But then, they probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, if they had been.

They aren’t told, at first, that the plans were lost. They know they managed to transmit the plans, that they made it to the ship Tantive IV. It’s a young Alderaanian nurse who lets it slip that nobody has seen Princess Leia or the Tantive IV since Scarif.

“But she’ll pull through,” he says, eyes shining with conviction. “I don’t think there’s anything our Princess can’t handle.”

He seems almost religious in his belief in the Princess, and Jyn, who’s never held much truck with royalty or any of the universe's powerful can only scoff internally. What can a lily-white, spoiled Princess raised in luxury in the Core do? What is her place in the Rebellion, when someone like Jyn, who has had to fight for every scrap she can get her whole life, is looked upon with suspicion and disdain? What does that say about the Rebellion? And does she really want to stay, once she’s free and clear of Medical?

They are told officially by Alliance Command when the plans make it to Yavin, along with the Princess and three people of undetermined origin and purpose. Some further probing reveals that one of them is a Wookie, the other a smuggler, and the third a farm boy from an Outer Rim backwater planet Jyn’s never even heard of. She’s being allowed out of bed for a few hours each day when the Death Star arrives above Yavin. Bodhi, Chirrut and Cassian are awake at this point. She looks around at these people who she was supposed to die alongside on Scarif, and thinks, _at least we got a few more days_. _At least we got the chance to say goodbye_. She clings to Cassian on one side and Baze on the other – Baze has his arms round Chirrut, and Bodhi closes their circle between Chirrut and Cassian.

Somehow, magically, miraculously, they’re saved. The plans they bled for serve their purpose, and the farm boy (of all people!) manages to blow the Death Star up at the last second. Jyn is her father’s only remaining legacy. Or maybe the destruction of the Death Star is just as much his legacy as the Death Star itself.

They get to see the heroes of the Alliance later (their own roles having been shifted to the background by this new feat of heroism by these more palatable heroes, and Jyn is, frankly, a bit relieved). She sees Leia, the Princess, and all she thinks is _oh_. _Oh_.

She understands now the reverence and worship the Alderaanian nurse seemed to have for the Princess. She’s five foot nothing, but she dominates the room effortlessly, all eyes turn to her and she has an unconscious grace and _presence_ that seems to demand notice.

They hold a joint wake for Alderaan and Jedha, the two victims of the Death Star, once they have scrambled to move the base before the Empire comes back to them. The Death Star may be gone, but the Empire is still up to its old business: worse now, as they need to blame someone, do something, about the Death Star being gone. They need someone to punish, and the Alliance is happy to take the blame: less happy to take the obliteration that comes with the blame. The survivors gather in the Great Hall and observe both Alderaanian and Jedhan mourning customs. Jyn has been invited by Chirrut, Baze and Bodhi, each pressing her, in his own particular way, to come. She feels like a fraud: Jyn hasn’t been Jedhan since she was sixteen years old, and perhaps not even before then. The Partisans never belonged to Jedha, not the same way the Guardians did. They had, at best, a fractious relationship with the local population of Jedha, and the moon was a convenient location for a base, never their home. They were always Partisan first, anything else second. There wasn’t room for many other ties of loyalty.

Leia is there at the wake, up at the front, leading the Alderaanian funeral rites. She is calm and dignified as she recites a poem in Alderaanian, but Jyn can feel the anger beneath the sad words. Today, Leia says, is a day for mourning. Tomorrow, they fight back. The Hall erupts with cheers, both Jedhan and Alderaanian. Leia glows with inner strength. She looks like a true Queen. She looks like a leader. Jyn thinks she’s never seen anything so beautiful.

They broadcast a message from her to the galaxy, especially the survivors of Alderaan. The Rebellion is overflowing with new recruits. They establish new covert bases all over the galaxy, to make up for the one they lost on Yavin.

They hold a medal ceremony on their new base, first for the blond, wide-eyed farm boy and his smuggler friends who brought down the Death Star, then for the crew of Rogue One, and finally for the surviving pilots who flew the Death Star mission, both to Scarif and over Yavin. The stage feels crowded once everyone is on it, but at the same time far too empty. The pilots mutter the names of people who should be there and aren’t. Jyn only recognises a few of the names, and thinks she should know them all. After all, they died for her father’s sins. They died following her.

Princess Leia hands out the medals, smiling brilliantly and sharing a secret smile for the farm boy and the smugglers. She doesn’t say anything to anyone as she hands out the medals – all that can been said about their bravery and sacrifice has already been said, over and over until they, all of them, want the whole thing to be over and done with and never brought up again. The Rebellion needs all the good publicity it can get, and is not above milking the achievements of even the most reluctant recruits like Jyn Erso and Han Solo. Jyn wonders when she will stop feeling like an interloper and a fraud. She doesn’t belong up here with the heroes of the galaxy. She’s just someone who kept her head down until circumstances conspired to make it impossible to keep it down any longer.

She keeps going on missions with Rogue One, who have kept their name, ship and members. She doesn’t quite know why she sticks around in the Rebellion: it’s mainly because she has nowhere else to go. (That is a lie. She sticks around for Cassian, Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze, and, yes, for K2 as well; for the feeling of hope she feels for the first time in a very long while; for the men, women, and others who followed her to Scarif and didn’t come back; and for those who followed her to Scarif and did come back; and later also for Leia.)

Sometimes her missions intersect with the Millenium Falcon or with the Princess. Bodhi has made fast friends with Luke Skywalker, the baby-faced pilot hero of the rebellion, Cassian and Han don’t get on at all, but seem to enjoy not getting on, so that’s alright, and Chirrut and Baze get along like a house on fire with Chewbacca. Baze and Chewbacca find companionship in grumbling about the damn idiots in their company who go rushing into scrapes (they keep trying to one-up each other with new stories about Chirrut and Han, respectively, some of which absolutely can’t be true), and Chirrut joins them to provide snarky commentary. That leaves Jyn and the Princess. She wonders if her so-called friends do it on purpose, and if so, do they do it to be kind to her, or cruel?

Leia is not just a diplomat and dignified Princess, leading wake and handing out medals, she is also a highly competent fighter who’s decisive and not afraid of getting her hands dirty. For some reason, she actually seems to like Jyn, or she’s extremely good at hiding her true emotions. (Leia was raised as a politician – it’s very possible that she is actually that good at hiding her emotions.) Jyn prefers to think that she actually likes her.

One time they’re transporting Leia to a meeting with a rebel cell on after a long set of meetings with rebel cell (Bodhi is a cargo pilot, not a fighter – most of the Rogue One missions are supply runs and transport. It gets tedious after a while). Jyn expects it to be one more in a long line of boring meet-and-greets, hello, this is Princess Leia and the heroes of Scarif, good to meet you, you’re doing good, keep up the good work, here’s your new blasters, death to the Empire, rah, rah, go rebels. She should be enjoying the relative quiet after a life on the run, but all it does is make her antsy. But then the rebels don’t show for the meeting. Two companies of stormtroopers do, instead, and they end up having to shoot their way out to where Bodhi waits with the ship.

“I will never complain about a boring mission again,” Jyn promises as she and Leia duck behind cover. Leia grins – she doesn’t seem to believe Jyn either.

“And you say we never do anything fun.” She hands Jyn a spare blaster that Jyn doesn’t actually need (if Jyn gets her way, she never has less than three blasters on any mission) Still, she appreciates it. “Cover me.” Jyn swears as Leia dashes across the open ground, but obligingly puts down cover fire.

“A little more warning next time,” she requests once she too has made it over. She can’t be too annoyed, though. She’d do the same if the situations were reversed. She can see Chirrut deflecting blaster fire with his staff in the background – it never stops being impressive. Neither does the big cannon that Baze has brought and is using to take out any stormtroopers who come close to being a threat to Chirrut.

“You were fine,” says Leia, grinning back at her. “Come on!”

This time, Jyn is ready for her. They all make it back to Bodhi safely.

They’re in the hold of the shuttle, where Jyn once tried to find the right words to motivate a group of rebel soldiers before a suicide mission they needed to do to save the galaxy. They were not supposed to come back, but they did. They did, and now she’s in the cargo hold with Leia (Chirrut and Baze are up with Bodhi, and Cassian is undercover with K2 somewhere), after another mission that they survived against the odds. Taking the chances, and the next, until they succeed or the chances are spent.

“That was maybe a bit too much excitement,” Jyn says.

 “Are you never happy?” Leia asks, but she’s smiling, so Jyn doesn’t take offense.

 _I could be_ , she thinks _. I could be happy with you._ But that sounds mushy, so instead she kicks Leia lightly and changes the subject.

She thinks Leia likes her when she seeks her out on base. They move base yet again, this time to an icy hellhole called Hoth (Jyn knows why the Alliance favours uninhabited inhospitable planets. It doesn’t mean she’s happy about it). It’s not that they’re the only women (the rebellion skews human and male, like the Empire and unlike the Partisans who skewed alien and male, but there are other women around, if it’s just female company Leia is looking for). It must be Jyn specifically. Jyn tries not to read too much into it. They go on missions and train together, of course they know each other well and are friends. Leia finds Jyn’s interest in blasters and pyrotechnics amusing, and Jyn in turn teases her for being the most un-diplomatic Princess she knows (this is technically true – she only knows one) even though she knows Leia can turn on the charm when she needs to, when she wants something. But with people she likes she can be really blunt and forthright, and Jyn appreciates that. Even so, when Leia tells Luke Skywalker that since he has no experience whatsoever of galactic politics, why doesn’t he stick to piloting and leave negotiations to the adults, Jyn can’t quite suppress a snort.

“You should be more direct,” Jyn says, trying to keep a straight face. “Don’t be so polite all the time.”

Leia glares at her for a moment, then her mouth turns up at the corners, and she meets Jyn’s gaze for a second before turning back to Luke, who really had cocked up the negotiations with a potential recruit. Not everyone was receptive to his wide-eyed, charming, righteous farm boy act (and Jyn knows that he’s a lot more cunning than he lets on, that the innocent farm boy thing is partly a ruse, but that doesn’t mean that Leia is _wrong_ ).

  So, they’re friends, is the thing. Maybe even good friends. Friends are a rare thing for Jyn, who’s used to comrades-in-arms, allies, and people who are useful to her, but not actual friends. But, she tells herself, they’re just good friends, and they’re not likely to be more, so she should just get over herself. She tells herself that is why Leia’s eyes scan the mess hall until she spots Jyn and makes her way over, why they frequently end up in Leia’s room at night, sometimes with the boys, sometimes just the two of them, drinking and just chatting about stuff. Jyn tries to do Leia’s hair for her, but she’s never had the time to do the elaborate styles Leia favours, so more often than not she gets everything in a hopeless tangle and they end up giggling about it like the schoolgirls neither of them got a chance to be (Jyn doesn’t think she’s ever giggled before. Leia makes it very easy). They even talk about boys, something Jyn has never done before. Han and Luke both are puppy-ishly infatuated with Leia, and while she finds it amusing at times, mostly she complains about how annoying it is (Jyn doesn’t have that problem. The men of Rogue One are her family, her brothers. Even K2 is like a very annoying younger brother (‘why does she get to have a blaster and not me? It’s not faaaaaaiiiiir’).  Jyn tries to keep her face neutral, hoping that Leia doesn’t know about _her_ infatuation and feel that way about _her_.

It comes to a head on a mission gone wrong. The Rogue One crew and ship were discovered, and imprisoned, separately. Their holos are now in the Empire archives – they’ll have to be a lot more careful about their missions going forward. But it’s not a total loss. Cassian managed to activate a distress signal to the Alliance, and, more importantly, Jyn has managed to take down her guards, rig some makeshift explosives and get out of the cell (not necessarily in that order). There’s a little problem in her way, though, which is that she has no idea where the others are being kept. There’s a stormtrooper in front of her, alone (she barely has time to register that as unusual). She has her blaster up, ready to fire, when the trooper shouts:

“Don’t!”

Normally, she would shoot anyway, but normally, troopers aren’t female. Or at least, Jyn doesn’t think they are. It’s hard to tell under the armour. But she hesitates, which is enough for the trooper to get her helmet off. It’s Leia. R2-D2 rounds the corner after her (how Leia thought she’d go inconspicuous as a stormtrooper with a blue astromech droid following in her footsteps Jyn doesn’t know, but she files it under ‘things to discuss later’, and possibly ‘things to tease Leia endlessly about’).

“What are you doing here?” she asks, thickly. Because she thought the Alliance would send a rescue, but not Leia (even though, in hindsight, of course it would be her. Her and Han and Chewie and Luke, to rescue the Rogue One crew. The two crews most likely to get into trouble, but also most likely to get out of it).

Leia hands Jyn a blaster (it seems to be a theme, with them. Jyn tries not to read too much into it).

“Well, I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” she says.

“You didn’t have to come,” says Jyn with bravado she doesn’t feel. “I do all right on my own.”

“I know you do,” says Leia, seriously. “But you’re wrong: I did have to come.” She reaches out and places her own hand above Jyn’s on the blaster. Jyn looks down at their joined hands and swallows when she realises what Leia is telling her. For once, she lets herself read something into it.

“Really?” she asks, voice wavering.

“Really,” Leia says. Jyn searches her face for any kind of hint that she’s misreading the situation, that this is a lie, a misguided prank (but of course Leia would never be that cruel), and finds none. Leia’s eyes are clear and serious as they look back. She’s even smiling a tiny bit, that secret smile of hers that Jyn likes so much.

R2 chirps something at Leia, who looks vaguely annoyed for a moment before her face clears. (Jyn, who’s working on learning binary, thinks he’s saying something about this not being the right place or time for their romantic realisations.)

“R2’s right, let’s go get the others,” Leia says. But she keeps Jyn’s hand in hers as they move off to set some more charges.


End file.
